Quicken 2010 Personal Finance Software Review

Intuit released it’s latest version of it’s flagship product Quicken 2010 on October 11th 2009 so being the geek I am had to acquire a copy for review and see if it’s worth the expense both for myself and my readers. The sad state of affairs is that as far as the personal finance software world is concerned Intuit is the only game in town for a comprehensive package of expense tracking, investment tracking, budgeting and planning. We lost Microsoft Money this year so it really leaves this a one horse race in the standalone software department. You Need a Budget is the only other real contender in this area but their focus is solely on budgeting and expense tracking. I use YNAB for my day to day tracking today but I wanted to see if Quicken could replace YNAB and then some. Let’s dig in.

If you are looking for a Mac Version of Quicken please read my new review of Quicken Essentials which is the only Quicken game in town for you Apple fanboy and fangirls.

Quicken 2010 Version Comparison

There are 4 different versions of Quicken 2010, okay really there are 5 if you include their free Quicken Online service, okay scratch that there are 6 including the Rental Property Manager, but I’m going to skip that one outright, that’s a pretty specialized niche. But we’ll just focus on their standalone products. For my review and use I opted for Quicken 2010 Deluxe edition I wanted to try out some of the additional tools not included with the Starter Edition.

Quicken 2010 Edition

Starter Edition

Deluxe

Premier

Home & Business

GET ORGANIZED

Step by Step Guidance

X

X

X

X

Bank and Credit Card Accounts in 1 place

X

X

X

X

Import Data from Financial Institution

X

X

X

X

Automatically categorizes expenses

X

X

X

X

Bill Alerts to help avoid late fees

X

X

X

X

Schedule recurring and upcoming bills to show impact to income

X

X

X

X

SAVINGS/DEBT REDUCTION GOALS

Import from all versions of Quicken

X

X

X

Investment Accounts, 401(k), IRA, 529, bank, credit cards, etc.

X

X

X

Create a Debt Reduction Plan

X

X

X

Retirement Savings Tools

X

X

X

Create Savings Plans for college, house or other purchases

X

X

X

INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT & TAX PLANNING

Consolidate All investment accounts in one place

X

X

Comprehensive investing, planning and savings tools

X

X

Morningstar Ratings for mutual funds to help make informed decisions

X

X

Track cost basis and estimate capital gains to help minimize taxes

X

X

Show changes in assets, liabilities and net worth

X

X

MANAGE YOUR BUSINESS

Auto categorization of Business or Personal Expenses

X

Show your Business Profit or Loss

X

Run Schedule C Reports to ease Tax Preparation

X

Highlights tax-deductible business expenses

X

Create invoices and estimates

X

Where to Buy

You can save a trip to the store and buy online direct from Intuit. The nice part is that you can download it immediately. Also right now as of this posting if you buy Quicken 2010 Deluxe or any of the more advanced products you can get Willmaker Plus for free.

Quicken 2010 Unboxing

Why they don’t just distribute software in a DVD like box I’ll never know, maybe it’s so they could include their Chase Bank backed credit card offer! No thanks, but how about a getting started managing your finances card? Nope not in there.

Documentation

Yeah not so much. There’s none included with the software instead on the CD wrapper you are directed to http://newquicken.com/getstarted which sends you right to the Quicken forums will you find absolutely no help on getting going with Quicken 2010. Apparently Intuit wants to foster some social networking and let us learn from ourselves. You’ll have to dig but as of this writing there’s next to nothing in the forums. This is a disappointing way to be introduced to this product. There’s not so much as a quick start guide to get you going. In the help menu you will find some guidance, albeit terse. If you’ve never used quicken before your in for a learning curve. Oh yeah if you go to look for the user manuals to print out as referenced on your CD cover, you won’t find them. No actual user manuals.

Quicken 2010 The Official Guide (Quicken Press)

Quicken Press just put out an official guide to using Quicken 2010 that might also be helpful for getting up to speed with this latest version. I haven’t reviewed it as of yet but the current reviews seem favorable. It was written by Maria Langer who is a freelance writer, helicopter pilot, and long-time Quicken user. A former financial analyst with a degree in accounting, she is the bestselling author of the previous editions of this book. It covers the Quicken Deluxe and Premier versions.

Topics Covered by the Official Guide

Customize Quicken for your preferences

Track your cash flow

Set up Online Account Services

Automate transactions and tasks

Reconcile checking, savings, and credit cards accounts

Track investments and optimize your portfolio

Monitor assets and loans

Manage household records

Reduce debt, save money, and plan for retirement

Simplify tax preparation and maximize deductions

Quicken 2010 Startup Screen

In an effort to get you going as quickly and easily as possible they provide a 3 step process to get your accounts setup, enter your recurring bills and then go on to budgeting and savings goals. The process is quick and painless and does a decent job getting you up and running with the basics. It almost makes up for the lack of documentation.

The Quicken 2010 Check Register

If you’ve ever used Quicken or Money or frankly any personal finance software the check register will look familiar to you. It’s found by click on the Banking tab at the top of your Quicken window. It’s use is pretty straightforward and makes that all important cash register cha-ching! when you enter a transaction. Ah Quicken you’re so 2000 Late.

Syncing Quicken with your Bank or Credit Union

While setting up your initial accounts you have the option to pick your financial institution from Quicken’s comprehensive list. My smallish credit union as well as my bigger banks were all in here and Quicken went ahead and imported the last 90 days of transactions from my accounts. This is where Quicken shines, pretty much any bank or credit union is setup to have Quicken pull your data. This is by and large Quicken’s best and most powerful feature.

Once you’ve setup all of your accounts it’s a simple matter to click on Update to bring in all of your bank’s cleared transactions.

Budgeting and Spending Goals with Quicken 2010

All right let’s be honest. For anyone doing any form of more advanced budgeting Quicken has not fit the bill. Sure it’s always had some generic spending limits but not really a comprehensive planning product nor an easy way to maintain variable expenses or sinking funds from month to month. With 2010 they might have actually done it. On the planning Tab under Other Tools you’ll find the budget. This opens a wizard type menu where you can go through and record your expected income, the frequency and then include your various budget categories you want to track. I like the fact that you can set a time period for things such as Garbage that may be every 2 months or your paycheck which may come twice a month. Setup is relatively simple. When you’re done with that your Planning page will have all sorts of useful info regarding your current budget status.

Quicken 2010 clearly defines your actual expenditures versus what you’ve allocated shows whatever balance you may have left in that category as a “Left Over.” The part I love is that they have the concept of a Rollover Reserve which means if you have a category such as Auto Maintenance that you want to keep building month to month but won’t necessarily have frequent expenditures you can watch your balance build. If you decide that you have too much money in a category you can allocate some or all of it to another category. First inspection this looks very well done, time will tell if it’s usable for the long term. I know many users complained of trouble with the 2009 version of this function.

The essence of the budget planner is that it goes well beyond their simplistic view of allocating a set amount of money to a category. What they’ve really got setup is a framework for a Zero Based Budget and I’m anxious to try and use it over the coming months.

Savings Plans or Savings Targets

If you are saving up for a specific big ticket item or event, Christmas comes to mind. You can easily setup a Savings Target in your Planning Window. It shows your progress towards that goal and is rather simplistic. You can also create a Savings Plan and Quicken will effectively create a separate account just for that savings goal. It’s a strange way to go about tracking the progress of your goal and doesn’t show up in your planning window. Contributions to the saving goal are recorded as transfers from your other account. You’d be better off creating an actual savings account and transferring it there rather than a virtual savings account which is the methodology here. What it’s doing is hiding that money from your check register.

Quicken 2010 Investment Tracking

Not only does quicken link into your banking institutions it will bring in your investment portfolio such as your mutual fund accounts, IRA’s, 401(k)’s, 529 College Savings plans and the like. I focused most of my time on reviewing the budgeting and expense tracking portions of Quicken 2010 but from what I’ve seen there are a lot of tools available to track your investments and provide some capital gains guidance as well. The premier version of Quicken has even more capability in this area if you are so inclined. This is really an area that none of the other personal finance software providers can touch. If I use Quicken for nothing else it will be to track my investments and net worth going forward.

Quicken 2010 Extra Tools

Depending on which version you purchase you’ll get some extra tools to help you with your finances. Some useful, some not.

Debt Reduction Planner

If you’re rolling your own debt snowball and want to create a printout of your debt payment plan then you can use the debt reduction tool. It’s an okay solution, I still prefer the free spreadsheet version for Debt Reduction but hey it’s a tool you’ve got as an added bonus.

Password Vault

This is a secure place to keep all of your other passwords for your banks and other online sites and protect with one common password. Again it’s nice they include it, but you don’t really want to be limited to Quicken for all of your password needs, and it doesn’t scale well if you are on another computer. If you’re looking for a good way to manage your Passwords we’ve got you covered with some other free tools.

Bill Pay

This is a service that Intuit provides so that you can pay your bills direct from Quicken 2010. It’s a $9.99 a month charge for something that you should be able to do with your bank for free. If your bank doesn’t offer free bill pay, find a new bank. And just forgot about this ridiculous service.

Quicken 2010 Review Wrap-Up and Recommendations

Who’s It For?

It’s for the discriminating user out there who requires all of their personal finance ducks in a row. This is the place for tracking all of your basic finances along with your investments. It does a good job of this. It’s also got enough budgeting horsepower built in that this could be your one stop software application.

Who’s It Not For?

First off Apple and Linux users you’re still out of luck. This is a windows only release supporting XP/Vista and Windows 7. Intuit still promises an upcoming Mac version in February of 2010.

I would also not recommend this product for someone who doesn’t like 4000 different options for everything. Some of the power of Quicken 2010 quickly wears off when you try and navigate it’s seemingly limitless options. If you are looking for something just to use as a budgeting tool with some level of expense tracking, I still recommend You Need a Budget. It’s much, much simpler albeit without investment tracking, bill pay, and online syncing of bank data.

My Recommendation

Honestly I was prepared to try out this software and then give away my copy but I’m frankly intrigued. The last version of Quicken I used was 1999 before switching to MS Money and now on to You Need a Budget. I’ve got too much invested in YNAB to dump it outright and I really do like it’s budgeting interface. But I have to admit the investment features and various eye candy have me contemplating the move to Quicken. What I’m going to do is run them both in parallel for a month or two. If you want my advice for today, if you want to track investments and have the benefits of online bank synching go for Quicken 2010 otherwise I’d go with You Need a Budget.

Will the new Mac release convert all fields from Windows versions? I have been told that converting to the Mac version will cause a loss of much data, especially investment data. I have been using Quicken for Windows for as long as I can remember (back to the Andrew Tobias MYM days) and am now running Quicken on a Mac through a Windows virtual machine! Not the most convenient.

I am currently on secondment in the UK, though will return to Australia in a few years, and considering purchase of Quicken Premium 2010. Can you please advise if it handles import of bank accounts and investments concurrently in GBP and $A?
Thanks

I was a Quicken user for years…but switched. I grew weary of Intuit disabling features on older versions — features like connecting to my bank account and updating fund prices. I also grew tired of the nag screens up selling me to packages I did not want. I figure, if I make the buying decision to get a particular version then the ads should stop. 😐 So I switched to Moneydance. 😉

I’m intrigued that you are using Moneydance. I too am weary of Intuit trying to sell me software every time I start Quicken. Unfortunately, there aren’t a lot of good options for personal finance software. I’ve downloaded a trial version of Moneydance (MD) and will use it alongside my new copy of 2010 Home&Business. I’ve looked at the MD website and it is easy to find valuable information there. The folks at MD seem anxious to please and customer service also seems good. Hmmm…if I find MD does what I need then its the trashcan for quicken.

I too, left the Quicken forced upgrade arena.
Additionally it must be noted that some fanciable institutions charge your account fees for Quicken to sync your account information.
For the overall frustration and hidden costs of using Quicken it is far from worth the headache.

Thanks so much, I have been trying to find out practical insight on using the investment management tools in the Premier version. I really appreciate the heads-up about the learning curve challenge and the guides you provided.

Thanks for the review. Also, I learned that Money is gone, which I didn’t know. I am a long-time on and off quicken user, having started in the 90s. My main problem with the software, and indeed the whole process of tracking finances, is that the synchronization with the accounts is always imperfect. You always lose a few transactions even with automated downloads. This makes you question the data, which then makes the whole exercise of downloading all the stuff a waste of time. Quicken needs to find a way to ensure that the program gets ALL the data regardless of how often you synchronize.

I haven’t really encountered that one myself at least once I got on a plan. I agree the initial startup is rough and definitely is a time commitment. Myself using You Need a Budget you actually download the transaction list as a file from your bank and import. In the solid year of use I haven’t missed anything and I’m watching every penny like a hawk. I’m not sure that Quicken or YNAB or anything else could do anything other than deal with what your bank may be providing as information, the best policy in my opinion is to be sure you’re doing both, if you let automation take over your finances entirely you may never know where your dollars went. Thanks for stopping by!

I was a MS Money user for years. Just bought Quicken Premiere 2010 after tinkering with the free online Quicken. I’m really upset that most of my financial institutions don’t have available synching/transaction downloading, including my two retirement plans: TIAA-CREF and New York State Deferred Compensation Plan; and my Capital One checking and savings accounts. The setup screens declare that it’s “Unavailable.”

I had Quicken 2009, but just purchased 2010 because of your review. I desparately need a better budgeting tool than exists in 2009. Your article shows 2 more tabs on the budget, a way to budget income and expenses (Money has this but it’s going away).
My budget 2010 screen still has only Setup, Budget, Summary – it’s missing Income, Expenses – the whole reason I bought 2010.
Am I missing something?
Tim

Hmm are you on the planning tab? The wizard is under: OTHER TOOLS. My laptop died where I had quicken installed and I’m reloading Vista as we speak, when it’s done I’ll get it on there and give you exactly how I did it.

Thanks for your feedback. I purchased Quicken Premier . My planning tab does not have Other Tools. I can get to the Budget, but it’s the same screen as the 2009 version (has only Setup, Budget and Summary tabs – missing Expenses, Income and Savings). Did you import your data from a 2009 version? I’ll try to install it clean on a different machine and let you know the result – in a couple of days.

FYI.
I installed Quicken 2010 on another computer – this one uses Vista, in the first post I was using XP. The Budget stuff seems to work in Vista exactly as you described, although I really haven’t done anything yet – all the tabs are there Setup, Budget, Summary, Income, Expenses, Savings. I am working with Quicken support to get next the steps for my XP machine. They suggested I uninstall and re-install the XP version, but first I’m going to experiment with my XP-converted-to-2010 files on my Vista machine.
Thanks.
Thanks for your help.

Hi Paul, Thanks for all your hardwork in reviewing this new product. I have used Quicken for many years and had no problems until I got Windows Vista. How is Quicken 2010 interfacing with Vista? Did you have any problems with that regard? Thanks for your help!

I had used quicken 2006 for several years before “upgrading” to 2009. I upgraded because of this annoying message that recommended that I upgrade before Quicken ceased to support my older version. Boy was this a mistake. After upgrading, the graphs that I use to track my spending were no longer accurate. The expense graph numbers actually change when enlarged. Frustrated, I called Quicken and talked for several hours to a guy in India who finally told me that my data was corrupted. I told him that my data was just fine before I upgraded. Now I have paid another $50 to upgrade to Quicken 2010 in hopes that Quicken has repaired the flaws in the last version. My recommendation to anyone considering an upgrade is to stay put as long as everything is working. I wish that I had never upgraded. Quicken support in unhelpful if you have any problems related to an upgrade.

I updated to Quicken 2010 after getting a new computer using Windows 7; no download problems yet, but if I reconcile the investment account without a linked cash account, all the trades revert to a 0 basis with a 100%. Email tech support can only help with data corruption files and referred me to phone support. Phone support was unhelpul telling me that since the transactions were corrected using Ctrl+Z that my problem was solved. When asked what to do about future errors, she told me that wouldn’t happen, but it did. I’ve stopped reconciling while I wait for phone support to call me back — two days and still waiting. Odd note: it only happens with my Schwab accounts, not the account from Principal.

Hi
I have the old 2004 program but having just updated to windows 7 i have found it will no longer run. Can you tell me if the 2010 program gives you the option to work in GBP instead of dollars.
Cheers
Stev

Well I can say that it has an option in the Preferences for multi currency support but doesn’t seem to allow me to switch everything to GBP, this might be a question better directed at Inuit, sorry I couldn’t be more helpful.

Does the 2010 Deluxe version (as opposed to having to pay the extra money for the Home & Business version specifically for this reason) allow for the creation of classes so that you can classify revenues and expenses both by category and within, say, a “Personal” or “Business” class, so that you can quickly run business profit/loss statements, for example?

As a longtime Quicken user, I know earlier Deluxe versions included this feature, but I don’t want to buy 2010 Deluxe to find that this previous feature has been turned off so as to force those combined personal/business users to buy the more expensive Home & Business version.

I would like to order/download one of these two version immediately, and so would GREATLY appreciate your letting me know as soon as you’re able whether I’ll be able to accomplish the tracking of both my personal and business expenses using the less expensive Deluxe version.

Thank you in advance, as well as for the whole review.

Speaking of which, I just spent quite a bit of time out on the YNAB website (not having known about this until reading your above review) and am now wondering whether, in fact, I might be better off — given the variable nature of my self-employment/business income — going this route rather than returning to Quicken.

I guess this brings up another question. Does YNAB have the built-in capacity to track both “Personal” and “Business” revenues/expenses (same question as my first paragraph, above, but concerning YNAB rather than Quicken Deluxe)?

Also what about dealing with multiple currencies (e.g., US $, UK £), both Quicken- and YNAB-wise?

I was certain until now that I’d go with one of the two Quicken versions (Deluxe or Home & Business), but wonder whether YNAB might be better for my purposes. I don’t tend to use the more peripheral features of Quicken (investment tracking, etc.). Mostly revenue/expense tracking, profit/loss reports (for tax purposes), etc.

Any suggestions which might nudge me into one or the other … Quicken or YNAB? And if the former, whether Deluxe still retains the ability to break out by customizable classes (e.g., “Personal”, “Business”).

Hey Sean,
Wow thanks for your detailed ask, I’ll do my best.
Looked through quicken 2010 there are plenty of tools to run reports on specific categories and break them out. It also supports tags which sounds like the “classes” you were talking about. From the help:

A business tag is a specialized tag that Quicken uses to group the transactions for a business.

After you add the business tag and apply the business tag to the appropriate transactions, Quicken displays the data for your business in a number of ways.

Adding a business tag to Quicken
When you add a business to Quicken, you tell Quicken the name of your business and the tag you want to use for the transactions for that business.

Using a business tag with a transaction
When you enter a transaction in Quicken, you have the option to include a tag. When one of the tags you include is a business tag, Quicken can associate the transaction with the appropriate business.

This feature is in my copy of Deluxe so I can confirm. If you realize there are still some features you want there is an option to upgrade to the next from within the deluxe, but I don’t think you’ll need to at all. And thanks to your question I’m going to start using this myself to classify FiscalGeeks activities out of my own personal account.

As to YNAB’s ability to track the two, it can, but it would solely be within the concept of a category. So any expenses would have to be assigned to say your business category and then you can have any number of subcategories under that business. It’s not as slick as this tagging method. Also YNAB’s reports are not going to give you what you want. Also there is not support for muliple currencies in YNAB. The 3.0 version is on the horizon where it should have a number of new features but it can’t match quicken’s capabilities in that area yet. So for what you are asking about I’d probably go with quicken.

Thank you, Paul. What you’ve passed along is hugely helpful, and I greatly appreciate your taking the time to look into this for me, and to write back.

Also, I think you’re right that Quicken sounds like the way to go. Now, whether to just say screw it and get the Home & Business version or just go with Deluxe given that it does allow the tagging of business expenses. With that feature intact I know that the reporting functionality (at least with previous versions) is robust enough to be able to pull the customizable reports I need to both manage the business and for tax reporting purposes, though wonder whether the ability to run customer invoices, etc. might make the Home & Business version worthwhile.

Just upgraded from QD07 to QD10. Was shocked and very annoyed that QD10 rounds off figures in the account summary column (left hand). If I owe $90. 56 on my credit card, I don’t want it reflecting the I owe $91.00, and if I owe $90.43, I don’t want it to show $90.00. I am terrified I might write a check for the rounded off amount and have a repeat of the experience where the phone company once dinged me $5.00 for accidently leaving ten cents off a payment. I went into setup and preferences looking for a way to disable the rounding off feature. If it’s there, I didn’t see it. If I can’t turn it off, I may uninstall QD10 for just that reason.

They may have added things, but they took away one of the most useful shortcut keystrokes – Alt-C to get to the reconcile page. You have to press and then release the alt key, then press s, then press r three times and finally enter. You have to do the same thing to get back to reconciling after adding a new entry in the middle of the reconcile. How annoying!!!

Let me know if you find a way to get Alt-C back. I’m looking for macro software now. 🙁

I’ve used Quicken almost since it started. It used to be rock solid – and then all of a sudden when they started adding all these bells and whistles, the bugs came – in droves. It really turned me off. I’m currently still using Premier H&B 2004. I tried to upgrade a couple of times and found the newer versions clunky and buggy. I’m leary of upgrading. I know this version and it works. I believe I’ll wait and see what your and others reviews are a month or two from now. If they’re still positive, maybe I’ll upgrade.

My problem is I’m using Quickbooks Online for my business but don’t like Quickbooks for a number of reasons. I need to consolidate and choose one or the other. I can’t keep using both.

I just got Quicken 2010 Home & Business. I can not update to the current rev 2.

I tried to do the updates through the Help menu – Download latest version. It said that I had Q2010 R1 and that there was an R2 available. It went through and started the update with three green dots on the status bar and then failed to complete the updates. What should I do? I am concerned that I will not be able to get any updates if it is acting like this now.

It did not do the updates during the install. It gave me error messages.

ek,
I think your best bet is contacting Intuit directly to help with your problem. I merely reviewed the software I don’t work for Intuit. They are going to provide you much better support than I can. You can go to their support site for help: http://quicken.intuit.com/support/windows.jsp

I downloaded Quicken 2010 and am getting an Error Message 8143…Quicken Failed to Launch when I try to Register. This is the same problem I had with Quicken 2007 and Vista. I was hoping that Quicken 2010 was more compatible with Vista and I wouldn’t get this message. Intuit doesn’t have a clue. Any ideas on why I’m still getting this error message with Quicken 2010? Thanks for any feedback anyone can provide.

1. Close Quicken.
2. On the Windows Desktop, right-click the Quicken icon and select Run as.
3. In the Run As window:
1. Select The following user.
2. Click the User name drop-down arrow and select the Administrator.
3. In the Password box, enter the Administrator password.
4. Click OK.
4. If you receive a warning about unauthorized access, click Allow.

So Quicken Deluxe 2010 does allow you to track investments? I’m going to upgrade from 2006 and I couldn’t find what exactly it allows you to do – 2006 allows you to track cost vs. current values and will update those values when you go online. I can’t figure out what the Premier would add if Deluxe still allows me to track the way I have been.

This may sound a bit juvenile, but does Quicken 2010 have something similar to MS Money’s Cash Flow Forecasting chart? I’m in the market to purchase software to replace my makeshift excel spreadsheets, and I’ve become fond of this tool from my ol’ MS Money 2002; please advise.

Hmm I’m not familiar with the Cash Flow Forecasting, this might be equivalent to you setting up budget categories in Quicken. Mint certainly has more cash forecasting tools and I know they plan to incorporate those into Quicken going forward but I can’t comment on the same functionality in 2010 vs MS Money. What did you use that charting for?

Cash Flow Forecast does exactly what it sounds like. It forecasts your … ummm … cashflow. Does Quicken have anything similar? I’d be using my old copy of MS Money 2007 Deluxe right now if I hadn’t bought a laptop and forgot that I loaned my CD to my brother! ARGH! But Quicken does have a 60-day satisfaction guarantee. So at least I can try the product out and see if it fits what I need it for.

OH! Upon scrolling down to click Submit, I see Alan has answered the question. My new question is – is that available on all versions of Quicken?

Under Bills – Calendar – Show Full Calendar… there is a month-by-month balance forecast. You can go as far into the future as you want, but it only shows one month at a time (unlike Money where it shows multiple months on the same chart). As with money you can view one account or multiple accounts. It is shown as a stacked bar graph (where Money showed line graphs with a “total” line). The only bug I have found is that when you make a one-time adjustment to a scheduled bill reminder (for example, bumping an expected $1,000 income to $1,500 one time only) the “Full Calendar” shows the correct daily balance but the bar graph does not reflect the change.

I’ve been using Q2009 H&B under Vista for over a year (and Q2008 and earlier under XP, and earlier than that, for years), and have had no serious problems with managing two nonprofit businesses that include asset/liability accounts, plus my personal accounts, which include an investment portfolio, credit cards, etc. I have managed various kinds of workarounds to the annoying limitations (no sorting on categories because it’s in the same column as Payee? Huh? Autofill on Find can’t be set to user spec, like searching on category? Huh? Lots of dopey “solutions” like that). I have looked over 2010’s ads and info on the Intuit site and apart from questionable bling, I see nothing that inspires me to get an upgrade. Am I missing something, or are we seeing stability-without-substantive-change here?

I have had MS Money since 2001 and using with XP Home. I am aware that Money will not continue but have also seen that Quicken has limited life so have been looking elsewhere.

With the iminent intention to switch to a new PC with windosws 7 professional, retaining my laptop with XP professional and wasnting personal finance software that will be available long term, can you please suggest any other software to look at besides ‘You Need a Budget’ that I could consider.

I’m not so sure about Quicken having a limited life. They just recently purchased Mint at mint.com which is a great online alternative, you might also try Budgetpulse.com a free online service or Pocketsmith available at pocketsmith.com I guess it depends on what you’re wanting to do.

Thanks for the reply, but I read in one of the Web sites or a magazine that both Money and Quicken were not being continued after 2010, so an alternative was needed. I have since looked at Bank Tree and found it covers almost all the things I need and have now started with that. No problem downloading bank statements and importeng them into the accounts and the reports are similar to Money once the categories of spending have been altered to suit.

I did try Quicken before Mone some years ago, but found that too involved and not as easy as Money. Keep up the good work
Malcolm.

Many thanks for your review! I used Quicken Premier 2008 and have difficulty seeing the investment transactions because the investment register has so small text and does not support the same option as other registers to increase the font size. Does Premier 2010 enable more flexibility in the viewing (font size) options for the investment register?

Current MS Money user here…When Quicken downloads data from your bank, does it give you the option to check-off or approve each transaction?

Does it give you the option to add transactions that have not made it to your bank account yet? Like checks? And if so is it smart enough to sync your manual entry with what will be downloaded from the bank when the check clears?

I am a long term user of MS Money can the files be converted to Quicken 2010 and does it do all the things money does e.g. set up to input fornighly amounts into your accounts ??
and transfer money between accountc etc.

Similar to John’s posting on 2009/10/22 at 6:55 pm, I also had issues when I “upgraded” several years ago (I tried to upgrade every year to ensure ongoing support). I can not use the graphs or the “net worth” reports as the numbers are definitely screwed up. Interesting enough the running tabs on the main menu appear to be correct, but some of the reports and most of the graphs are different. Interesting as they must not add numbers the same way. Similarly, the people in India simply told me my database was corrupt. After using quicken for more than 10 years, I am not prepared to re-enter any data. If Intuit is reading this forum, I hope they come out with some kind of fix for “corrupted” databases. I also hope they post somthing that indicates what data to purge (to reduce the database size) and what not to (kind of a system maintenance guide – so the people in India don’t have to lecture you about maintaining your system when there is no guide for doing it).

I also have experienced this same anomaly with the Net Worth Graphs. The Net Worth at the bottom of the account listings seems to be accurate. The Net Worth on the Graph is wrong. I believe it has something to do with Investment Calculations (realized / unrealized gains) – The trick is finding which transactions are not calculating correctly for the Net worth graph. If you can find those – and re-enter them – it seems to fix it. Finding those is hit or miss.

I have been using a PC and Quicken for years (current version 2008), because of the age of my laptop I am thinking of changing to an Apple computer (laptop) as we travel a lot. Will I be able to download my quicken files to the Mac version of Quicken?

I’ve been a Quicken user for many years, but I don’t upgrade every year. In fact, I only upgrade when they “sunset” a release; for example, using 2006, you won’t be able to download transactions from your financial institution.

Also, Intuit has a terrible track record with new releases. If I were to consider the 2010 version, I would wait until spring, after they’ve issued the usual round of patches. Put it this way: I am using Quicken 2009 R7, which means they’ve issued six rounds of bug fixes.

Hi,
My name is Venkat and I was in US for a while where i have used mint.com and I liked it but back in India, I was finding it hard to digest that this market has not really been tapped..there are moneycontrol’s of the world but do not provide what a consumer really needs…i guess they forget 2 most important aspects….comprehensive and automated !! All the money manager tools do a 50% job of these two aspects!! Then a friend told me about Perfios Software Co. Ltd. (http://www.perfios.com)and even though the app looks like of the 1990’s the functionality is awesome…they are the most comprehensive of all the s/w’s i have seen till date for india and the auto update feature is ultimate….Arthamoney comes very close but…having money is not everything…you can buy full page ads on TOI but can you deliver? NO i guess…u can deliver only if ur porduct is good…hats off to Perfios folks….
~Venkat

Paul, thank you for the very nice review. I have been using Quicken since the early 90s and I upgrade every 2 or 3 versions. I am currently using Q2008 R8 and am thinking about upgrading to 2010. I use it to track my financial accounts (semi-obsessively) and it works very well. I have never lost a transaction, although I have corrupted a file.

If this data is important to you, you must back it up every time you add or change data. You only need to keep a couple of backups. You can also (probably should) archive old information into one or more archived files. I have 3 years of info on my current file and 15+ years on my archived file. If you need specific info from that time, you just load that file.

I haven’t found Quicken’s built in financial graphs or reports very useful. They don’t have good enough info on the assets to be useful. They are simplistic at best and probably make incorrect assumptions about the data.

One built in tool that I use religiously is the “validate” tool. You find it in File|File Operations|Validate.
Thanks again for the review, and good luck to all the users.
Regards,
Bob

Went from QD07 to QD10. New version seems to take forever to do anything, especially backing files up to other drives. In QD07 I could go into Quicken Backup, highligh the current drive letter designation, type in new letter designation, and hit Backup Now. With QD10 I have to go into Quicken Backup, click Change, then click My Computer, then click the new drive, then click OK, which takes me back to Quicken Backup, where I have to click Backup Now and wait while Quicken takes forever to do a single backup. I’m seriously considering going back to an earlier version.

Just found this siite as I was reviewing the pros and cons of upgrading to Quicken 2010. The 2010 edition looks like it will be cumbersome to use with too many options, etc. Ready for this? I haven’t upgraded since 1998! My computer guy years ago tweaked different computers so that it will run on them. I am now using XP on a laptop and considering a new system with Windows 7. I understand the 1998 edition won’t run on it. From what I’ve read about 2010, there are a lot of bells and whistles I don’t need. Do you know if there is an older version that would run on both XP and Windows 7?

Sylvia first welcome hope it’s the first of many visits. Maybe if you were a little more specific for what you are looking for I could be of assistance. What’s your primary use for finance software? As to compatibility with Win7 you need to be pretty recent as far as Quicken for compatibility. Be sure to read through the comments as some seasoned Quicken users have some real world experience that might be useful.

Hi Paul,
I’m running 2007 Quicken Deluxe, and wondering if 2010 deluxe permits an option to do a ‘clean install’ (vs. upgrade). I’m running Vista Home premiere on my laptop, and would like to do a ‘clean install’ of Quicken 2010, (preserving Q2007) so if its buggy, I can go back to 2007, and the ‘backup’ 2007 formatted qdf file.

However, in the past, once a previous version is seen, Quicken wants to upgrade (in contrast to office 2003 and 2007 running simultaneously on Vista, except for Outlook).

I know I could uninstall 2007 Qdeluxe on the laptop, and then install Q2010, and import the .qdf file, but would rather not! Ive been using Quicken for about 12 years, and agree with all the comments on the customer service support. All software has qwirks, but I used to work in technology when my company still really had tech support! Still believe in the saying “if it aent broke, don’t fix it,” but I realize Q2007 deluxe will likely be ‘voided’ for updates, soon, with Win7 coming out, and so I’m looking at Q2010 deluxe.

BTW, I use a completely separate set of categories and subcategories for my business income/expenses, along with a separate checking account and credit card(accountant suggestion to me) but I use ‘classes’ for things like categorizing medical expenses into tax related classes like ‘HSA qualified’, HSA unqualified (deducted as med expense), HSA submitted, HSA distributed. Sounds like from reading your comment, that ‘tag’ has replaced ‘classes’ in 2010? Used to be under tools/classlist or ‘control L’

I currently have quicken deluxe 2006 and loaded it on my new computer. I can’t get it to print. I want to upgrade to a quicken deluxe 2010. Will the data from the 2006 be compatible with 2010? Will it cause me any problems?

Paul,
I just bought 2010 delux AND a new computer running Windows 7. the version on my old computer is 200 delux. Will I be able to import the old data without problems or loss of function? How hard is is to do for a non geek?

thanks for the great info. I have a quick question. I have quicken ’06 for mac, and have been using quicken since 1999. (Continually upgrading). I need the functionality of syncing with my bank, because i have a few hundred deposits every month and I also do my bill paying online with my bank. In the last few months the syncing has gotten really out of whack. When I reconcile at month end, the process usually took seconds, because it always balanced perfectly. Now, it seems to miss a few transfers of funds or online bill payments. It is really annoying and frustrating. When I spoke with a quicken rep, he said, I probably have corrupted files since i’ve been using it for so many years.
I was going to purchase the windows version 2010, (I’m running a virtual machine on my mac), but am not sure if it’s worth the investment. I would like to start the New Year fresh, with windows version, and just keep all of my old Quicken Mac information backed up on time machine in case its needed. What are your thoughts

Hard to say Steve I don’t have long term evidence to point to but seems to be working great for me so far. I do prefer You Need a Budget 3 though overall and it’s going to be the software I stick with long term. There new beta now supports Mac you might want to try it although you have to download the transactions from your bank rather than auto sync, but that’s about a 30 second process for me.

I was perfectly happy with QD07, but upgraded because I knew I would lose the ability to download from my online banking sites when Intuit stops support for QD07. I have a very fast PC, but waiting for QD10 to perform common tasks is like “watching paint dry.” Why is it so slow? Didn’t have the problem with QD07 and QD10 is the only application that frustrates me this way.

Paul,
Thanks for the review, I appreciate your efforts. I only wish that I had read your post prior to throwing down a wad of cash for Q-2010. I have used Quicken for many years and generally have been satisfied with the product. Q-2010, however, is a real disappointment! As you stated in your writ there are really few reasons to upgrade, very little is new. Many things have been moved around, others left out entirely and the big push to get you get you net-social is nearly overwhelming. The program butchered my 2009 data file during the conversion, had to start from scratch to get things setup properly. Imagine my surprise after spending several hours trying to navigate the endless myriad of confusing ‘options’ without a great deal of success, to discover that there were no ‘manuals’ online, instead they recommend you buy a commercially written ‘book’ on how to do Q-2010. The backup feature of 2010 has been rendered almost worthless for those using multiple drives to accomplish such. I have updated to Release R3, but the problems remain.

I will leave 2010 installed, but return to 2009 until Quicken issues the next Release. As of this writing I can not recommend anyone updating unless you just ‘got to’ have it.

After I reading the feedbacks from others in this review/forum. I realize that upgrade is the worthless and would waist few hours along with worries as it may screw up my data.

I also just got an 50% offer directly from Intuit for 2010 Dlx and WillsMaker 2010 = $29.99. I decided to pass this good deal and continue with my 2007 Dlx. All I would want is to wait until Intuit to implement the download checks images from the banks. I willing to pay $49.99 for new version that able or has capable to download the checks deposited/written images.

I would suggest new users to buy older version for much cheap cost – 2009 or 2008 or 2007. which have to same the feature as 2010.

I live in the UK and I’m trying to purchase or download a copy of Quicken 2010 Deluxe. Are you aware of any retaillers where I can do this as none of the major ones will allow me to (Amazon.com/buycheapsoftware.com).

1 – Quicken reports have never been very user friendly but with 2010 it’s even worse. I’m getting a 3″ left margin even with the settings at .5. An old gripe – Quicken has never allowed margins less than .5 even though I’ve had printers which can handle margins of .25.

2 – Where the heck did they get the idea that EVERYBODY would want tags. It appears they’ve ramed TAGS down our throats and have given us no means of doing away with them. They’re every where, taking up realestate and I don’t like them. I haven’t been able to find anything about getting rid of them. I DO NOT WANT THEM IN THE CHECK REGISTER, ETC. ETC.

After over 25 years of using Quicken I’m ready to walk away from Intuit products.

This is a great review of the product that I am now forced to move to. I have been a longtime MS Money — circa 2000 and was very disappointed to see that Microsoft was discontinuing this product. For the absence of competition for 1 point, but that I have always liked the functionality of MS Money over Quicken. Now that this is gone, I will convert but I am very concerned about the historical information I have stored in MS Money and converting it to Quicken. This is a good resource that I have now bookmarked in my Internet favorites. Thanks!

Robert,
I confess that I reverted back to You Need a Budget mainly because they just came out with version 3 in Beta. I just prefer the budgeting portion of YNAB way over Quicken’s version. To be fair I’ve also been using YNAB for over a year so it’s hard to want to switch to something entirely different. I do miss not having the investment tracking though.

Hi Paul,
Thanks for your review! I just got that notification that my Quicken 07 will lose it’s download capability so I am trying to decide between upgrading and using an online program like Mint.
I love Quicken, save one issue. In my current version, my credit card (B of A) transactions can not be downloaded between statements. I have to wait until my statement cuts, and download it all at once. Needless to say, halfway through the month I have no idea where I am in my budget (unless I devote a lot of time I don’t have manually entering transactions), and that causes problems following my budget. I know it’s not a B of A issue because Mint (and some other online programs) have that capability.
Can you tell me if the 2010 version fixes this?
Thanks 🙂

Jessica,
I believe that is a problem with your card issurer, rather tthan QD07. I too used Q07 before upgrading to QS10 and I was always able to download statement entries as soon as they are posted to my Visa account. Since I have a rewards card, I use it for nearly every purchase and download almost daily. Chase makes me wait at least three days between payments, but that is a minor inconvenience.

Maybe looking forward and I quote maybe to Mac 2010….I have been a quicken PC customer for about 15+ years and just switched to a Mac. I always thought quicken was the best thing since sliced bread or maybe air conditioning but I have to say right now I think it “sucks”….
First I had problems loading it. Which at this point after three chats that lasted almost 9 hours, and is now loaded….
Next I can’t line up my checks….

The service Chatting is less than poor. The phone service is only available 5a-5p west coast time and I am on the east coast and they don’t even call you back…
My bank HSBC does not even do a web connect so I guess I have to manually reconcile my checking…

I have been trying to futz around with the Quicken 2010 Premier version. I fell for the half off promo–boy, I’ll chock that one up to stupid tax! I have not been a Quicken user in the past. In the current age of competition, I would have thought that Intuit would be more intuitive about how to serve the customer, especially a first timer. Among the problems I have had, which I have read about in the threads on this site:

1) I cannot get in touch with someone when I have a question! Instead, I email someone and hope they will contact me within three hours. When I did finally get a message back it was clearly someone from India! Not that there is a problem with this, but in the message they didn’t even give me any advice to my question that I stated very clearly. Instead, they suggested that I email again to have someone contact me…arrgggghhhh!!!

2) I cannot get my investment accounts to go through direct connect and from reading the above threads, it appears that I won’t be able to…the very reason that I purchased the premier version!

3) I wish I had read the threads on your site BEFORE I purchased. I would NOT recommend this version of Quicken for anyone!!

I totally agree with your assessment of Quicken support, or lack thereof. I purchased the Qucken Rental Property software a week ago. The purchase price came out of my account almost immediately, but I never recieved a confirmation page or a download link. There is no number to call and talk with anyone. I found myself emailling my question and waiting around for a response….approximately 4 hours later. I still had trouble with the ID that was provided to me and had to email again today. As a business owner, I am dumbfounded at this lack of customer service. I equate this to opening a fast food restaurant with drive through service only…..just to find out that there are no drive through window attendants, that you have to email your order in. This is a disgrace and I would not recommend Quicken products to anyone.
I do not have an opinion on the functionality of the product itself, as I am still, as of today, unable to download the product.

I have 2010 deluxe to set up new file. Have converted old file, and can print out transactions, but cannot view, go to register. I read to go to Banking tab, can’t find register anywhere. How, where to look for register? I want to view the register with its transactions. Just to make sure transactions were in the file, I printed out one month, and sure enough, they are there. Thanks for you help so much. I am not an expert, but do enjoy having the ability to enter data, do reports for my accountant, even if I don’t use any of the investment, planning, services. At lease I have a compiled and categorized file of data from which to do reports. Thanks.

Quicken 2010 is nothing more than Quicken 2004. No important functionality has been added. Intuit needs money and so they announced that the 2004 version will no longer download transactions from your financial institutions and thus you MUST buy Quicken 2010. Perhaps it is time that Intuit works on new products instead of beaten an old, but useful horse to death. This forced purchased has caused me to not consider ANY of Intuits products. Like they say, money talks. It’s my small contribution to relaying a message. Milking customers is never a good strategy.

That’s an excellent question Jeff. Yes it doesn’t have many of the features that Quicken does with respect to automation, but honestly that’s not what I’m looking for most. I wanted a piece of software focused entirely on budgeting and the other features were merely nice to haves. While I don’t credit my success in the last year to YNAB alone but it has helped my wife and I immeasurably to bust out of debt and maintain a monthly budget. That’s why I myself choose You Need a Budget and why I think it’s worth the cost. Not to mention there support environment is fantastic because this is all they do, they are not a large corporation like Intuit has become. Seeing all of these comments from disgruntled Quicken users is definitely eye opening. I’m still using both pieces of software right now FYI because they both have their strong points.

I’m a MSMoney user since Money98 and had been satisfied. I just purchased Quicken 2010, installed it, and imported my old Money files – no problem. I then went to setup online banking (the only reason I’m not still using MSMoney) and connected to the institutions without problem. When the data was downloaded from the first bank, Quicken did not match most of the transactions with transactions already in the register and made duplicate entries. I could not find a mechanism similar to MSMoney’s that would allow me to accept or correct the matching of downloaded transactions to existing transactions. I now have about 500 extra transactions in checking and savings account from this bank. I think it’s time to checkout Quicken’s 60 day return policy!

Does anyone know if Quicken 99 can be used with Windows 7 or Windows 7 “pro”? I was recently forced to upgrade to Quicken 2010 due to a new computer with a Windows 7 operating system. I hate it. There is no memo field in the check register to make notes about a transaction and I would much rather go back to my old Quicken 99.

It’s not really on my radar to review, but one I am looking at and will have a review this week is on a relatively new online personal finance application PocketSmith. Be sure to check back later this week or better yet, subscribe via RSS or Subscribe to FiscalGeek by Email.

1st time reader. Appreciated it and have added it to favorites. To the point; I am looking for Feedback on Windows to Mac conversion for quicken 2010. I am a 10yr user of Quicken on Windows, primarily for tracking investments but also budgets, etc. I am currently using Quicken 2009. I am losing sleep over losing history, especially cost basis and purchase dates on investments. Any booby traps I need to be aware of? Are there other investment software choices that will take Quicken data files?

Pam are you asking about converting from Quicken PC version to the MAC? or vice versa? The MAC version of quicken is do it in February but from what I understand it’s a scaled down version of Quicken called Quicken Essentials. I plan to test and review once it’s released, but I’m afraid I can’t answer your question on the conversion from one platform to the next. As far as your last question on investment software, none that I’m aware of, MS Money was the only real player in that space and they are gone. One thought is that Quickbooks would probably allow you to import that data as it sounds like you’re using it for some form of business this might be the time go give it a go.

I’ve been delighted with Quicken DeLuxe 99 for a long time. I can do everything with it, and do not want a product that claims it will even brush my teeth and tell my fortune! My SOLE concern is the possibility of long-term incompatibility with some future highly evolved version of Windows (I’m on XP Pro now). Is this a valid concern?

Paul, & everyone else who has contributed: Many thanks! I’m and on & off QD user since the 90’s. Fully agree with the comments that the added complexity Intuit added in starting with the 2000 version ruined a pleasant experience. Sure, I liked the possibilities of all the added functionality, but “user-friendly” does not seem to be in Intuit’s lexicon.
Anyway, I’ve heard about YNAB before and may head that way. The original reason I contemplated QD10 was to get access to customize categories for budgeting. Wells Fargo on-line banking has a nice categorization function, but it’s not customizable.

Hi Paul,
I am a long time user of Quicken and on again off again user of Turbotax. I have recently felt the need to use an accountant since I am self employed; but LLC corp. I am thinking of upgrading from Quicken Home and Business 2008 to 2010. I would really like to eliminate the accountant piece, but struggle with setting up the accounts properly to allow for accurate and convenient downloads to Turbotax. Is there a guide somewhere that would assist me with this? I have entertained buying one of those “dummies” books, but I think they are too basic.

Great question, I just saw another guide when I was in Barnes and Noble the other day and it looked a little more complete. They were out of stock of the official guide so honestly I don’t know if it will go into the depth that you are looking for. Might have the best look perusing the shelves of your local super bookstore.

Hi Paul – thank you for the review – very useful indeed. One question i have for you is – can Quicken 2010 be tweaked to work in £GB rather than $US? Also, do you think that you could tweak state taxes in it to show as out VAT (Value Added Tax) – our equivalent of purchase tax?

Also our rather elderly version doesn’t like printing any more when being run on Windows 7. Is Quicken 2010 working ok in that regard? We have two HP printers

Paul,
We need to track our expenses religiously for primarily filling out EOY financial aid packages for our kids and to get better insight into Sched C prep for my husband’s property mgmt business. Will Quicken 2010 Deluxe do it or is Home/Business completely necessary? I want to be able to import monthly Credit Card and Bank statements and easily categorize into 5 major categories: food, merchandise, fuel and car maintenance, medical, and utilities. Please advise.

You should be fine with the Deluxe version. The nice thing is that if you decide that you are missing some features you need you can upgrade to the Home and Business edition for a reduced amount. Many people are using Quicken to manage their business avoiding the move to Quickbooks.

I just want to make sure I’m not missing something, regarding expense tracking using Quicken. From your review, it seems they still haven’t corrected a major deficiency. I manage the finances for my developmentally disabled godson. I track about 20 categories of expenditures. Am I right that Quicken provides no facility to display several months history in side-by-side columns on the same page? I spend a least 4 hours every month downloading my Quicken latest-month expenditures into a comma delimited file, converting that to Excel, and then reconnecting that Excel download into various spreadsheets of my multi-month Excel workbook. Thanks.

Hmmm not terribly similar other than the account reconciliation. Truthfully I’m not a huge fan of consolidating all of my finances online. I’m a little paranoid that way. I have a future post scheduled to look into the security ramifications of something like Mint or Yodlee keep posted for that one in the coming month.

Thanks for the info Paul. I use Quicken 2008 right now, and am considering upgrading to the 2010 for the improved budgeting module, or going to YNAB. I have been using Quicken for years, and use Quickbooks at work so I am very familiar with their platforms. I don’t want to get in a situation where I am double-entering each transaction. I saw where you said you had gone back to YNAB, but you stated that part of that decision was familiarity with YNAB. Given that I am quite familiar with Quicken in general, would you say that the budgeting module is strong enough now, or would you still recommend YNAB? Why?

I know Microsoft is no longer providing Money upgrades or support for users, but if I’m happy with what I have, and have used it for years, and don’t care about updates, can I just continue to use the version I have without problem? The only thing I use it for outside of my data input is updating investment prices…..After reading all the issues people have with Quicken, it sure doesn’t make me want to convert!

If it ain’t broke then don’t fix it Gail. If it’s working for you then I am not going to try and get you to convert. Microsoft will support it until January 2011 and then you won’t be able to get automated feeds from your banks etc. But you should still be able to import transactions by downloading a file from your bank directly. I imagine it will still work just not quite as conveniently.

I recieved yet another copy of the 2010 Quicken Upgrade CD in the mail. I was prepared to install it today but thought I would do a little research first. That is when I stumbled across your site, which has now been forwarded to some of my family and friends. Thank you for your great write up and follow up comments. It was helpful in making my decision not to purchace Quicken again. I briefly toured the YNAB site and find it will probably work better for me in the long run. However, I do have a couple questions. How is their documentation and bank data download capability?
Thanks in advance for your help.

Hi Paul,
I checked out the article and was sold. Your statement, “It’s personal finance software built around a budget, not financial tracking software with a budget component”, was key. I am a “graduate” of Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University and the zero based budget design is perfect. I like the flexibility and ability to tailor it based on my specific needs and budget. I found myself working around Quicken’s features and why I hesitated to upgrade. Thanks again for pointing me in the right direction!

I have used Quicken for about 15 years Starting with one of the first versions in 1997. I upgraded in 1999 and 2004 and 2005. Every single time I upgraded Quicken had so many bugs I was sorry I ever upgraded. I’m using Quicken 2005 now and suddenly since support has cease it won’t print reports anymore. I was doing it last month. I guess I’ll be force to update to 2010 but I sure hope they have worked out the bugs. Support seems non existant on the website.

I read some time ago that Intuit bought a lot of small companies that produced small tidbits performing specific processes that were added to the overall product. The up-side was more functionality. The down-side included a couple of thing. One, incorporating so many disparate code bases proved difficult for the integrators at Intuit. The second, and this is the important part as far as the retirement of older versions of Quicken, was that some of these code bases were using the registery in a way that was deemed unsafe by those that hack and crack and complain that Microsoft Windows products were not secure. So, Intuit has had to completely change the underlying code base while trying to maintain the previous functionality, just to be able to display the Windows logo. If you think that is not important, understand that lots of government agencies and private companies do not allow software on their networks that are not logo-ed. The stringent requirements associated with getting your software logo-ed is necessarily quite daunting, but results in software that will not break the operating system. Whether the program works as advertised, that is a totally different concern.

To those that complain that Intuit is sunsetting your software for financial gain, understand that computer security, and the need to protect their platform from people that seem to have nothing better to do with their time than find ways of corrupting an operating system, have forced Microsoft into enforcing more strict ways of handling interprocess communication, etc., to the point of rendering these otherwise useful software packages useless. These changes began in XP, but were expanded in Vista and now in 7. That’s why some users of older Intuit packages began having problems with XP, and the problems have just multiplied when these packages try to run on later OS’s. There are technical reasons that Intuit does not want you to run the older packages on newer OS’s, and they are reasons that Intuit can do nothing about.

Again, this is based on my recollection of information I read some time back. Like all things on the ‘Net, use at your discretion.

Anyone have issues patch upgrading to 7 from 5? 2010 deluxe on XP Pro, ran as admin, starts to upgrade and then stops short and gives an error. Followed all the advice on shutting down every service I have running, including firewall and norton. Hmmm. Even did the banking update prior to trying the patch.

I’m one of those stranded MS Money users trying to figure out where to point myself. In late 2008 I converted from PC to Mac and haven’t looked back. I’ve been running Money under Parallels and it’s worked flawlessly. Then Microsoft announced they were getting out of the personal finance software business, and I’ve been exploring alternatives for the last month.

Since I’m now on a Mac, my first thought was to get with the forward-looking trend and switch to one of the cloud-based systems. I tired Mint, Yodlee, iBank and several other “cloud” solutions. Alas, only Yodlee supports direct bill pay (where you enter a payment transaction and it sends it to your bank’s online bill payment system for processing and keeps the transaction in the check register maintained by Yodlee). But, Yodlee did not support several of my online accounts including Charles Schwab checking and savings and American Express savings. It was also brittle – meaning it had updated information sometimes, but not always, and would randomly refuse to submit payment transactions to my bank. None of the other cloud systems support bill payment through an existing bank – which I think is really really basic need, and none (including Yodlee) support detailed tracking of brokerage transactions. I scratched my head and thought “Jeez, am I crazy, or isn’t this stuff important to most people who have multiple accounts?”

So I pressed on, looking for a non-cloud-based solution. I checked out MoneyDance, GnuCash and Quicken 2007 for Mac, and all of them were so confounding, after 2 weeks, I checked answer E – none of the above.

I turned my sites to the about-to-be-released Quicken Essentials for the Mac. After getting membership to the Intuit “insiders” forums, I found a host of information about that product from users doing beta testing, and lots of complaining about missing features, and Quicken product management waffles and personnel changes. The bottom line is Quicken Essentials for Mac is really a non-cloud-based version of Mint, and doesn’t support direct bill pay, or detailed tracking of brokerage transactions, and (get this) can’t output data to TurboTax. After reviewing a number of other blogs where Mac users were in direct contact with Intuit personnel, it became clear that there really is no fully featured Quicken for native Mac users except Quicken 2007 (which will fall into the un-suppored realm soon enough). I’ve read all kinds of glowing remarks about the new guy that came in via the Mint acquisition, and even read his view of how things will unfold over the next year. He has some good ideas, but there’s not going to be a good answer for Mac users for a long time.

OK, so I decide to drop my “native Mac” requirement and press on. I bought Deluxe version of Quicken 2010 and started the conversion. The good news is that the conversion went pretty well and I was amazed how it just sucked in my data and created all the right accounts, categories and transactions. Sure, there were some hacks, but it went fine – for a while. Then it refused to link with several of my online banks, and after a long chat-based support session, discovered that the file Quicken created from the Money data was corrupt and couldn’t be repaired. So I did the conversion again, checking for corruption at every step and it seems to have gone just fine so far.

I’ve started to try to actually use Quicken 2010. Now I’m as good a Microsoft basher as anyone, but I gotta say, Money just has it all over Quicken 2010 in terms of user interface and usability. In comparison to Money, Quicken looks and acts positively stone age. And I discovered some really oddball hacks: for one one account Quicken only downloaded the last 9 months of transactions from my bank, so I thought I’d just download a QIF file and import that. Think again – no QIF import. I mean seriously folks? And, oh yea, you can tag categories to specific lines on tax forms, but unless you upgrade to the Home & Business version, it won’t give you a report of the tax data. The list goes on and on. Oh, and did I say it was ugly in non-intuitive? OMG.

Having struggled through the conversion to Quicken 2010, I’ve decided to run Money and Quicken in parallel the next 3 months and see how it goes. If anyone is interested, I can continue to post new discoveries here.

My hope in posting this is that someone else who’s stuck in the same situation will have the benefit of this experience.

Well David thanks so much for your insights, I would love it if you keep us posted of your findings as you go, in fact if you want to form them in a slightly more formal guest post I’d be happy to publish.

Hey Paul. I’m not sure what you mean by “form them in a slightly more formal guest post” – can you clarify? If you mean make it less familiar language and more factual, that’s fine. If you mean something else, I’m clueless. Glad to help. Your posts here were a huge help in my quest.

Ihad quicken deluxe 2009 which locked up and I could not get any section of the program towork I tried to reload and that failed. So I deleated the program, rebooted the computer and atemped to reinstall the program from the disk. Now the program comes up with a gray screen and does no respond. Some times locking up my computer. If the 2010 program is as good I do’t went it!!

I just updated from Quicken 2009 to 2010 and have been a Quicken user since 1995 when it was first out. I chose it because it linked to my bank- Citibank. Suprise when I upgraded to 2010, I lost connection to Citibank- Talked to Intuit India(II?) and after about 5 hours of working on my “corrupt data”(was not corrupt before I upgraded), they gave up. I called Citibank and they said log in changed and new PW. New PW enabled and now all of my Citibank data is now duplicated. Screen loads are slower and I have lost links to several of my retirement accounts. I agree, if it is not broke, don’t fix it. I just got tired of the online pestering screen of please update……

Paul — I’ve been using Quicken since the dark ages on my Mac, then switched to running the Windows version (via Parallels, still on my Mac), because I was tired of all the glitches on the mac version. Well, Q2009 certainly had much better functionality and was more stable, but ever since upgrading to Windows 7, I’ve been getting a screen flicker/reset problem that is incredibly disruptive to work. Basically, every minute the screen resets and the cursor jumps to the date field. This is a well-documented problem on the boards, having something to do with nVidia graphics card incompatibility (of course, the new macbook pros use nVidia cards). Anyway, my question is whether you know if Q2010 has fixed the problem.

I run an nVidia card in my PC without issue using Quicken 2010. Now I don’t know if that translates to the Mac using an nVidia card running Windows 7. I couldn’t tell you on that point specifically but I suspect that if it’s fixed on the PC it would be on the mac as I imagine it uses the same driver. Microsoft has claimed over 30% of crashes associated with Vista were caused by nVidia drivers so that makes sense. I have to admit I’ve always used nVidia cards and prefer them, but I’m off on a technical bent and will stop now.

Great review and the comments from folks match my experience also. Frankly, the online support from Quicken is as good as the manuals you find in their software packaging. But, as you point out there are few alternatives which is so aggravating. I just purchased 2010 Home&Business because my 2007 version is about to expire on 4/1/2010! Add to the fact the software is showing some weirdness now. Things that used to work mysteriously stopped. When I start the s/w it goes to maximum and will not display in any other mode. Add to that transactions downloaded and flagged as needing to be accepted but are not visible to do that anymore.
I saw another post about Moneydance and I’ve downloaded it as well. If i can get MD to work it’s bye bye grief and hello MD.

I bet if the author of this article stuck with quicken, he would have realized not long after realllly diving into quicken that there are some major flaws in it’s budgeting and planning features. The budet tool is not synced with the spending planner, so you have to enter in all of your allocations for each category manually. I realllllly wanted to be able to use quicken, but after around 20 hours or so of working on it, I’ve reached several major roadblocks which leave this product falling flat on its face. I’ve read numerous complaints from financial guys who are MUCH more experienced than I who also spent this much time only to be very dissapointed. Stay away, you’re better off with Excel. I’m going to ask for a full discount (they offer a 60-day money back guarantee). If only we could use Excel to import bank data!

Installed QD2010 yesterday. Imported backup data from previous version from a flash drive. All seemed well first day. Today double-clicked on Quicken icon and get a screen saying “See Where Your Money Goes” with a pie-chart and a “Get Started” block. Can’t find my accounts or any way to get to my account info. Tried to get Quicken help – it’s a joke.

I have been working an issue with their support for SEVERAL weeks now. It is sad as Quicken 2010 is by far the worse version of Quicken I have used. I have been using Quicken for 8-10 years now. All the “Interesting things” they keep putting into the product while interesting seem to keep them from the basic usabilitiy issues. For example, when the “Quicken Launcher Stops working”, all bets are off and Quicken support will ask you to reinstall the software. Then they will ask you to create a new user on Vista. When that stops working they will keep telling you there is something wrong with your PC and ask you if you can install on another PC! Are they kidding!

After reading thru all comments, I wanted to thank you, Paul, for your efforts at answering them like you have.
I have Quicken 2007Basic on a PC w/ XP-SP3 that I use mainly for the Bill Payment feature and to download checking account information from my financial institutions. All our bills are paid from one bank account and that keeps my income and expense accounts up to date so that I can run schedules at year end for tax purposes.
If I read your article correctly, Quicken 2010 Deluxe does NOT have the Bill Pay feature. Does Quicken 2009 Deluxe have it or should I plan on using my banks free bill paying service and enter accounting information into my Q2007Basic manually after April 30th?
I am nearing the age of 70 and from the horror stories some of your readers have mentioned, do not look forward to experiencing the brain damage necessary to try the Q2010 upgrade.
Thank you.

Hey Joe. There is Bill Pay capability but you have to pay $9.99 a month for Intuit to do it for you. I’m not positive on Quicken 2009’s bill paying capabilities but they’ll be sunsetting as well in the future. If you could make a workable solution using your banks bill paying service it would save you the $10 and that’s what I personally do. And you are very welcome, nice of you to say I try very hard to have a community here at FiscalGeek and hope you stick around.

I am a long time Quicken user and update the software yearly. ( an incentive from Turbotax)
Anyway, My current problem is the program is not opening properly.
I get a screen that gives me options to open a file on the computer, restore a back-up file and start a new one.. none of the options work at all.
In order to use the program, I have to reinstall each time.
Are you familiar with this problem or do you know a workaround?
Thanks in advance and thank you for all your research.
this is a wonderful site that I just stumbled on
Cheryle

Thank you Paul
I have messaged them, and they tell me how it should work…but doesn’t.. laughing
Now that I found a number, I will call them tonite, hopefully will figure out how to capture the screens, ( I do know the print screen option, but getting it to work on the new laptop is something else !)
If I do get an answer, I will pass it on if you want, just in case someone else has the same problem, OK?
Have a great weekend
Cheryle

Having been a Quicken and Quickbooks customer for years, enough was enough when I switched to the new Microsoft Money product which Microsoft came out with. Money was (and is) a MUCH better program. Shame on Microsoft for dropping it – because it doesn’t have the 90%+ profit margins that they as a monopoly enjoy with Office and their OS. Now that Money was no longer an option, I took the plunge back to Quicken after looking at ANYTHING else but finding nothing that could do the whole job of investments, bill pay, and online updates. All of the online options from other companies are anything but robust, so with my back to the wall, it was back to Intuit – a company I swore would never darken my computer again.

Most of my fears were unfounded though, the product isn’t terrible, it is in some ways the same old quicken, quirky, poorly written, undocumented, and poorly supported but very familiar to a long time user. The conversion from Microsoft 2006 started the crazy journey with Quicken only supporting Money 2007-2008 updates, however there was a workable kludge with the downloading of a trial edition of Money from Microsoft (for free), importing the data, then the Quicken conversion from that data. This is typical Intuit they bought the goodwill from Microsoft but did not care enough to have seamless (would have been easy) from all the existing Money products. 2006 versions aren’t exactly legacy. I was amazed that after 5 minutes of chugging along, the Quicken actually did a full conversion – Kudos to Intuit. There were issues, and ultimately I had to erase the converted data on my big accounts and start over, but it worked.

Then the typical Quicken stuff started happening, which is why I gave the product a overly fair 2 stars. There are FAR too many issues to report but here are a bunch of them from memory in no specific order:
ata with Quicken is usually an exercise in futility.

– The setting up online banking was a nightmare. This is because when Quicken imports the data and accounts, it doesn’t set this up automatically (which is fine), but while the institutions are named in the online section for each account, it needs to be changed to a different institution (lets say you need to change wells fargo to wells CARGO), then saved, then brought back to Wells Fargo in which case it actually then prompts you to choose which wells fargo you mean and then saves your account to do automatic updates. This took the Indian support tech (who was working on 5 simultaneous calls 3 hours to figure out with me). Being a software designer made the 3 hours work. I found the workaround. But even though the support experience was poor – it is head and shoulders above the historically horrible support by Inutit, a company started at a kitchen table and still managed the same way.

– the previous example highlights the biggest problem with Quicken 2010. Quicken cannot possibly have ever conducted any usability studies. The lack of usability is the biggest problem with today’s Quicken. What was awesome and intuitive with Microsoft money (easy entry, changing of fonts, resizing of columns, intuitive controls, well laid out features, all goes to crap with Intuit (LOL should be UnIntuitive). Quicken 2010 has fixed some of the usability issues, but the overall feel and usability of the program still suffers from its poor interface.

– Example. Bill pay. 6 options where Money had 1, and each more confusing and more likely to have you forget a bill than actually pay it. You can’t see your memorized list of bills, unless you look at it in any of 5 views. This month? Next month? Future? Is it editable? Changeable? Nope – it’s just terribly written. Almost looks like they want you to miss some of your payments.

– Unlike money – changing from bill reminder to transfers, etc. doesn’t work. Just erase it and retype. Putting in a name of a vendor (even one which is an Online Vendor) requires you to put in the full contact info (street, etc) in both places.

As I’m running out of room – I will mention that I didn’t write this review until I used it for weeks. Buy this software until someone actually comes out with something better – and SHAME ON YOU MICROSOFT! You have been alienating the user and professions communities for years – Unfortunately in the arena of money management – for now Intuit wins by the default of being the only player left standing!

Brian, I couldn’t agree with you more. MS Money is so much better than Quicken, and I too am disappointed to see this path come to an end.

I do have some insight into what happened at Microsoft. They decided to get out of the business for two reasons (1) they saw much of this function moving to the web with cloud-based solutions and didn’t think they could continue keep ahead and remain profitable in this segment, without a web-based client and (2) in spite of the superiority of the Money product, they just couldn’t build enough market share against Intuit. So they decided to fold. After that decision, they went on a selling spree – trying to sell the Money product and/or service. Because of Intuit’s dominance in the field no one would touch it. And Intuit just passed because of NIH reasons and because they got all excited about Mint. RIP MS Money.

And I concur with all your statements about Quicken versus Money – and the number of other hacks with Quicken is even longer than your list.

Anyway, like you, I switched to Quicken 2010 for Windows and run it under parallels on my Mac. It works, but is it ever clunky.

Interesting information on the business end David, that was good information to know. I could, just by actually writing down each issue probably come up with the “100 reasons Quicken is a poor product”, but my review was spur of the moment and had to be edited due to the specific limits of how long these reviews can be.

Now that I’m using it more, I am finding more work arounds than ever, and wish that in a perfect world that Intuit had competition – perhaps they would either make their product more usable, or would lose their dominance to a company with well crafted computer skills.

I have quicken starter. I know very little about computers. I was able to insert all y bills by following the prompts. I can’t figure out how to insert a debit card or ATM transaction. Any help would be appreciated. Thank You

Do not buy quicken It is impossible to get help. My old version would not report checks written on catagories only Visa purchases. I was told to upgrade to 2010 but the problem persisted. No Return phone call when I requested same. and when I reached a person through chat she took two hours, froze my entire computer and hung up!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! they are the WORST of all the bad companies out there and shoulc be put out of business

Sorry you are having so many problems Steve, I finally did figure out my problems and actually love 2010.
There are a few help sites out there, just do a search and you should be able to find answers.
Their Customer support was not good, I have to admit, time zones made it impossible to speak while home on the PC

I’m learning to HATE Quicken 2010. I have an issue trying to hide accounts and now I’ve discovered I can’t print from Quicken. Seems there’s a conflict with HP printers. Why didn’t they clear up these issues before releasing the upgrade? Also, they’ve really complicated the reconcile feature. You can’t just click back into reconcile in any way I’ve found. Why mess around with something that was good to begin with? Grrrrr!

maybe someone could help me with something simple: I’ve tried all kind of Personal Finance Software for Mac (ibank, accounting tool, finance to go, icash, Budget, Mymoney, ifinance 3, moneydance, moneywell, Seefinance, etc.) and I can’t do something that was possible with Money for Windows: to schedule payments that end in a specific date (for example when you get an offer that you pay with your credit card for 12 months without interests, you can schedule that regular payment and it charges the amount in your credit card account), and at the same time enter to the budget module and see those scheduled payments incorporated in the budget automatically.

My problem with all those softwares above is that some of them have this scheduling functionality, but when you run the budget module it doesn’t load all these scheduled payments in order to see them as a spending budgeted for the actual or next month. Yo have to type them again.

My question is: can the new Quicken for Mac 2010 do this?. I’ve heard so many bad things that I need to know this before buying it.

Why did all my many categories change requiring an edit of each cat to allow a P&L report to be generated? Each category change to a sched c requires a time consuming and tedious drop down list selection of each Schedule C cat. The ability to at least cut and paste the schedule c line item should be available, let alone the ability to mass edit the cats. It is too time consuming to edit every category.
I’m waiting for a reply from my bank regarding the transaction downloading from their site. If I can come up with a workaround I will give 2010 back IMMEDIATELY! I worked for a manufacturing software company; we would never let something like this out the door… its junk… do not buy!

I recently converted from my useful and user friendly MS Money to Quicken De Luxe 2010. I agree with all the sentiments expressed. It is like moving backwards to a primitive age–Quicken is unwieldly and unfriendly. Most programs on the market for homeowners are friendly and intuitive. This is not. No user manual and less than helpful information using the search feature. Calling support is, generally speaking, a waste of time; you may get some information but it will take time and patience. The forums are better so the users are pretty much helping themselves. I guess the plan is that we should all rush out and buy a book on Quicken so Intuit makes more $$. I am especially disappointed with the budget feature and the need to spend time to navigate the many options to find , in aggregate across many, useful information and reports. From what I have experienced in the last 2 months a number of the features can be combined to make a more user friendly program instead of the piecemeal options. But maybe that is not the aim. If all you need is to download account and investment information Quicken works (although at times very slowly). But if you want to keep track of a budget and be able to make budget changes and see transactions in a budget in a friendly format this software is time consuming and unfriendly. For now, this is what I need to use because there is nothing else with all the features, but I sure hope someone in the business is reading all the messages and developing a MS Money type equivalent software–simple, elegant and easy to use.

Great review. I love it. We haven’t had a chance to review Quicken 2010 yet… but we dove into the Quicken Rental software last week and it looks like they made some good upgrades across all of their software. Not big changes… but little things we’ve been asking them to change since they made the big move in 2009 to the new platform.

I ended up dumping it, it was too much work to do both and since my primary use is budgeting not investment tracking YNAB wins it. I thought I might use it for Business related tracking but there I switched to Quick Books and I’m much happier there too once I figured out how to use it.

I am currently using Quicken 2000 and Vista Home Premium. Quicken will not open my HP printer to allow me to print checks. I have tried all yhe suggestions offered on the web.
Will Quicken 2010 give me this same problem?
Also can I use my backup file from 2000 to the “restore” function on 2010?
Ron

Trying to figure out which way to go is so confusing. I have been a MS Money user forever and now I don’t know what to turn to. I have been trying to set up POCKETSENCE PYTHON SCRIPTS to keep the downloading functionality to MS Money and that is not going so smooth. Moneydance or Quicken seem to be the only two options for me and neither one has a very good budgeting tool. I’d like to try YNAB but it won’t automatically download all my banking and retirement account transactions at one time. Paul, do you balance your checkbook with YNAB? Can your wife understand and work YNAB?

I have been using Quicken for 17 years and am quite pleased with it. Probably that has a lot to do with a veritable lifetime of experience with the product. The features I use I use a lot; the ones I don’t, I ignore. I don’t really like upgrading unnecessarily–the 1995 version of Quicken works as well as the 2010 version.

But what really angers me about Quicken is when it forces you to do things you do not want, such as (a) installing advertising icons on your desktop and (b) forcing registration of the product.

(a) Install Quicken and BOOM–you have icons on your desktop for this bill pay and that credit card. For me, it’s just a big hassle knowing I have to delete them. But when I see someone else’s computer and there they are years later, I can’t help but think, “What makes Intuit think that everyone deserves the right to have a Quicken MasterCard icon on their desktop?” That’s almost like Intuit walking into my house and duct-taping ads on my desk.

(b) Maybe I do not want to register Quicken. For heaven’s sake, I’ve been using it for 17 years. Why should I have to register it every time I unwillingly upgrade or reload it on my computer.

The irony is that I also use QuickBooks at my office, and that is not so oppressive. Perhaps because I’m paying an annual fee for that side! 🙂

What I do love about Quicken–these two beefs are miniscule and just plain user-insensitive–is how easy it is to compile data. Not only have I used Quicken for 17 years, the last 10 have been in the same file (once I could backup to CD and not a floppy, I did not need a new file every year). So I can really see some long-term trends in our family expenses. THAT is really helpful.

Paul,
I have been using Quicken from the early days and my latest version 2004 is working well for me. I wish to move onto windows 7 before XP dies and at the same time upgrade to Quicken 2010.
Intuit don’t sell Quicken 2010 in the UK but are willing for me to buy their book versions, which are expensive.
Where can I purchase Quicken 2010 (Home & Business)

I tried Amazon.com with no luck, currently Quicken 2010 is only
available to customers located in the United States and who have a U.S
billing address. The UK is being completely ignored by Intuit for the
private household.

Any advice please on how to obtain a copy of Quicken Home & Business 2010?

As said before “Intuit” are not supporting the Quicken Home
and Business 2010 in the UK to get a download, a false US address needs to
be given. See Google and PC advisor etc…

I don’t understand Intuit’s reasoning, they support their home
market America also New Zealand and Australia to name a few but left the UK
high and dry?

If the software was scrapped, that would be understandable but it is
still being produced.

Any way, after a lot of sole searching I managed to obtain a single
user copy from America Michael@cintech.com using eBay and pay pal, hopefully
when it arrives it will meet the same standard as the 2004 version I have
and more.

Quicken continues to make the product more and more contorted for the average user. I have been a user of both Quickbooks and Quicken for many, very many, years and every time they make a “update” to their system they throw away all the previous terminology and menu locations and the 2010 is a piece of crap as far as I am concerned. I have yet to find where the hell the previously “bill payment schedule” option is. Well, I did one time but forgot to write the path down in my anger. The only reason I brought 2010 was due to a pc upgrade to Windows 7. I deeply regret that.

While I have maintained company records with Quickbooks for years, I chose to do my personal accounts on Quicken. All I need is a simple electronic checkbook with a few bells and whistles. I believe this is the end of my over 20 year (I think) relationship.

I don’t consider myself a novice by a long shot. I have been in the computer field before there were pc,s. Hardware and software engineer. Written a database system that is in use nationwide. I know much of what is done is to enhance market share and make sales. Enhancements of programs often remind me of the Russian and American astronaut comparing notes and the American showing his new ballpoint pen that would write in space. Commenting that it had cost 3 million dollars to develop, he asked the Russian how they had solved the problem. The Russian pulled a pencil out of his pocket.

Len, I couldn’t agree with you more. Quicken 2010 is the quintessential user interface nightmare. The creeping enhancement of the product has left it unbearably difficult for a new user, and I suspect perplexing for the Quicken die-hards. What is amazingly ironic is that Microsoft’s Money looks and feels like it was developed by Apple (straightforward, elegant, low learning curve), yet it’s being discontinued, and although Microsoft tried to find a buyer for it, the Quicken brand was so strong that no one would touch it. What Intuit needs is some serious competition. As a recent forced convert from Money to Quicken 2010, I feel like I just stepped back into DOS. Intuit’s arrogance in thinking they know better than the user what’s needed was exemplified with the release of Quicken Essentials for the Mac. Somebody at Intuit needs to take a fresh top-down view of this space and architect a solution with legs. There are many days when I wish Apple would rush in here and to to this space what they did with iTunes in the music field.

Received the Quicken Home and Business 2010 from Michael@cintech.com and uploaded this version on my laptop. Everything seemed fine until I imported 2004 files, 2010 converted the files to the latest standard then said it was unable to support the UK Version, so nothing happened.
Everything in the software was geared to the American market and the monitory unit was US Dollars. If I tried to change this to Sterling but all it did was convert to sterling against the value of the dollar.
I could use the software despite this but would have to start from scratch and everything would be in Dollars, this could be alright but why should I compromise.
Intuit have certainly gone out of their way to stay out of the UK market.
I downloaded a copy of the basic Quicken Books, but this is geared to the business market and no good for the Personal houshold finances.
I will continue with 2004 and if I move over to Windows 7, get a XP compatible Professional version.
If there is a way of converting over to UK standards I would like to know, but I doubt it!

I have just finished importing all my files from Microsoft Money, setting up my many accounts for direct connect. I have been using Quicken 2010 for about three weeks now and have to say I am not sure if I will continue using it. Compared to Money which I have been using since 1995 this is awful. The register is a joke. Dealing with payees and categories after downloading is a real pain. The thing has a mind of its own. I am sure I will figure it out someday. If it doesn’t get any better I will go back to Money and download manually for the rest of my life.

Great writeup. I’ve been using MS Money for a decade and while there are certainly things that annoyed me about it, I haven’t been able to find anything better.

I downloaded YNAB and it looks very cool. My only gripe (and it’s a dealbreaker for me I think) is having to manually download the statements and import them. I read in your review that you work with this program daily…you really log in to your banks’ sites and download an import files everyday? Do you think there is any hope that this program will add automated importing?

I’ve been using Quicken for more than 15 years and I will drop it at the end of 2010. The problem I’ve with Quicken is the amount of data corruption I’ve been getting latelly, especially in my portfolio accounts. Just now I noticed that Quicken once more messed up my Portfolio balance plus added several “placeholders entries” making my balance off just by a “few” thousand dollars. It is disguting.

Quicken is pure and simply eye candy. The software has gone downhill for the last few years and it has become a huge dissappointment in my view.

I’ve been running GNUCASH side by side with Quicken since March 2010 and I’m really impressed:

1 – GNUCASH keeps all my Portfolio balanced to the penny.
2 – There is no cr*ppy categories, it utilizes real double entry accounting.
3 – It is missing all the eye candy found in Quicken but the accuracy of the package is more important to me.

So coming Dec 31st I will say “bye bye Quicken” and stick with GNUCASH. Did I mention GNUCASH is free and there are lots of resource out there to help you with the learning curve?

In case you want to give it a try here is the link: http://www.gnucash.org/ – I would recommend getting the stable version and running it paralell with your software until you are comfortable with it.

Now can someone please help me to fix my Portfolio in Quicken??? Oh boy!!!

I am noticing some issues with my brokerage account balances that I am fixing manually as well. Quicken really needs to do some more homework.
Still not a happy Quicken 2010 user. The eye candy as you call it does nothing for me, I like a good reliable standard looking register that is intuitive and accurate. This thing is a joke. I am intrigued by the mention of other financial packages. IE Moneydance,YNAB,GNUCASH. Do any of these have direct download with the major financial institutions? This is one of the major features for me. I update all my accounts this way regularly . If I went Manual download I could still use my Microsoft Money.

Rob, there is an option for direct download in GNUCASH, but I never configured it for myself. I actually tried to do the download for my Canadian Stocks prices but it didn’t work so I never tried again. I’m sure if I put my head to it I will be able to get it work, but I really don’t care much for these options.

In fact I used the direct download with Quicken for many years but I discovered it was more trouble for me than entering the transactions manually. You see, I’m a perfectionist and I like my transactions to be in the same perfect order as my Internet Banking, I don’t use upper cases, etc…etc. So I had to go back and change them manually after the download anyway! 🙂 I also imput my entries almost daily, so I never have a backlog of entries to post, except when I go away for vacations. If that is the case I would use my Blackberry to capture cash transaction info, when I’m back I will expend a few hours posting everything in the same order as I see in my Internet Banking accounts plus the cash entries.

I love GNUCASH because, as I said before, it balances my Portfolio to the penny. I never had this privileg with Quicken: It was always off by a few dollars and sometimes by a few hundred or even thousands of dollars. Lots of data corruption and entries that would appear from nowhere.

In GNUCASH I even need to enter the stock price manually, but since I do that every other Thursday it really does not bother me. It just takes about 20 seconds of my time.

Now, there are a few things that I think GNUCASH could improve:

1 – I would like to see a list of accounts in the left hand side, such as in Quicken. However with GNUCASH you can right click in any open account tab and it will give you a list of accounts that are using at that moment (open tabs), but it does not list them alphabetically, instead it does list them in the same order as the tabs were opened initially. So if you open the tabs alphabetically it will list them alphabetically, otherwise it won’t.

2 – I would like to see a more user friendly introduction page, which I could customize to see only certain accounts plus list some of the reports I use more often.

Being open source perhaps we would see these options added over time. I’m actually really counting on it.

Having said all that, GNUCASH is still 1000 times superior to Quicken. It utilizes double entry accounting and not the crappy “categories” system. The advantage is that you can really customise your accounts, add codes to them, etc.

Despite utilizing double entry it makes it very easy since you have the option of using or not accounting terms. What does it mean? Well, if you want to make a deposit entry you just enter the value in the Deposit collumn and voila, you are done. Now because this app is a real accounting program you’ll find strange that the Deposits are in the left side collumn and the Withdrawals are in the right hand side, contrary to Quicken where you have debits in the left and deposit in the right.

If you really need direct download, perhaps you will benefit from MoneyDance. It is not open source and free, but it is affordable and it works in different platforms, such as Linux, etc.

I personally didn’t like MoneyDance because I don’t want to use categories anymore. After more than 15 years with Quicken, yes it has been this long, I really feel bad that I waste so much time with “fake” accounting, instead using the real thing.

So, December 31st it will be bye bye Quicken day for me. 🙂

Like I said before: Get a couple of apps that you think you would like and run them side by side with Quicken. Afer a few months you will be able to make a decision which one you like the most. A caveat: Money Dance will allow only 100 transactions in the “try out” mode.

Jay
Thanks for the detailed info on GNUCASH I am going to take a serious look at it.
As of today I was really ready to go back to my Microsoft Money and deal with manual downloads. I could not believe that Quicken downloaded duplicate transactions that had already cleared on a previous download. What a joy……..
I am assuming GNUCASH will not let you import data from Quicken or Money?
Making your January 1 move a good time make the switch.
Thanks again for the input.

If you have issues try to the Quicken QIF file without first creating a new set of accounts in GNUCASH.

Now keep in mind that importing an set of accounts from a program to another will never going to be 100% perfect. In fact I tried and I didn’t like the results very much, so I choose to create a new set of accounts with the Quicken balance on March 2010 and start fresh with Gnucash. I would love to have been able to bring my 15 years old file intact, but unfortunately it didn’t work for me. However my case my be different from yours because I have a quite large set of “categories” and about 5 different types of investments, plus business accounts, etc.

I have been using financial software since 1992. I think I started with Quicken, but soon switched to Money. My last version was Money 2003. With impending death of Money, I made the switch to Quicken 2010… and discovered what a piece of sh!t it is. Money 2003 (yes, 2003) is way better than Quicken 2010. Why couldn’t Quicken die instead. It looks like 90% of people here agree. I just might go find a copy of Money 2008, enter my transactions all myself and say effewe Quicken.

Hello James,
I believe I was running 2003 before going to ’07. I believe I needed a copy of 2004 for the jump from 2003 to 2007, BUT 🙂 there was a FREE download that offered the solution without any problems. There is no need to go to 2007 version, the 2003 is fine, but I have not tried 2008. Check the net to see if you need a version between yours and going to a newer model. I agree quicken is junk. I will literally go back to hand writing before using quicken again. I’m old school and still like my Rolodex.

I have been using Quicken for about 17 years and I have been happy with it, until now. Version 10 I am not impressed. It does not auto-reconcile, and now i am trying to add an account from Community Bank NA and it is not there. In fact I find there is very few banks on the list. I set up my Canadian accounts with nor problem. The US account will not work. Any ideas would be welcome.

As with everyone else, I am making the forced change from MS Money. The conversion to Quicken produced total garbage. Terrible product, terrible interface. No help from Quicken. My financial institutions will not accept it. Quicken just told me it would be 6 weeks for a refund which I purchased directly from them. I wish Microsoft would reconsider selling Money again. It is a much better product.

Yeah, I get the upgrade advert at startup too. Dear Quicken, I just bought your POS v10 less than 2 months ago and now you want me to “upgrade” to your v11 for $80 minus $10 (discount) = $70. To this, I say effewe. How about $10 to upgrade? That’s twice what it’s worth.

I have been using Quicken since the beginning and agree with many of the comments here, but all-in-all I am very happy with my 2009 Premier version. However, I need a new computer and I would like to go to a Mac to avoid all the problems I have had with a windows PC. Based on what I have read, I cannot use the Quicken for Mac and will have to continue to use Quicken for windows. My question is how well does Quicken for Windows work on a Mac using a program like Parallel? Have any other long-term Quicken users made this switch successfully? Were there any issues to overcome and did Apple customer-support help you out? I could play it safe with a PC (assume my present Quicken version will work and I won’t have to upgrade to Quicken 2010) but I would like to go with Apple if (and only if) Quicken works reliably in the virtual windows world. Thanks.

Can someone give me an idea of how to print a report consisting of my tax deductible items from Quicken 2010. I do have all tax deductible categories set up and my line items have the turbo tax check mark next to them.

I have been keeping the books for an organization, on a very old version of quicken. I have just recently started keeping the books for a second non profit so I decided to buy a new version of Quicken. I went with the starter edition. I installed it, entered all the new data for the second organization but when I went looking for the old Quicken it had been replaced by the starter edition. I then went looking for the first organization’s data and I believe I found it but can not get it to open in the New starter edition. Is it possible to import the data and if so how do I do it.

I have been using Quicken since 1994, with occasional problems and the inconvenient forced upgrades. I switched to 2010 last summer…. bummer!!! Consistent problems ever since. Software decided (after recent Wells Fargo service split account conversion) that it won’t let me download transactions to the account any longer. Several bouts of, in one case, over 200 transactions that have been identified as compromised in the file validation process. Leaves me with very little confidence in essential for tax reporting data. I’m looking for an alternative!

howliving much??? im on social security (734) mo and living in a hud community, disabled and can’t work to supplement my income .. would if i could . Disabled . have 2004 quicken and used it extensively along with quicken pro for my home business before i became disabled. i rely on tv and they are my only contact with the outside world.
quicken has alway been proven itself in the years past with me . HELP !!!! i’m 70 and hoope to be here at 95.
LEE NORRELLlnorrell21@live.com

I’d used Quicken for a couple of years, but then I just dropped it. It became quite troublesome to keep up with all the updates and new versions. Now I’m using this nice online tool https://www.inexfinance.com/ to keep track of our family finances and I really like it so far: it’s reliable, simple and, more importantly, efficient when it comes to budgeting and expense tracking.